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Mark Webber, pictured, along with Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel talked to reporters on Saturday. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

With the the U.S. Grand Prix just a day away, drivers are very excited about the race. Drivers Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber spoke to the press on Saturday after qualifying. Below is the transcript of the press conference.

Sebastian, we haven't really seen you going off at Turn 19. Have you been off there?

SV: Yesterday!

How have you been treating it? What is it about Turn 19 that's so difficult and how have you been treating it?

SV: Obviously I tried to stay on the track–it's faster–but it's extremely difficult because obviously you want to carry as much speed as possible into the corner and ideally be as early and aggressive on power as you can. The difficultly, first of all, is that the apex is quite difficult to see, so it's rather easy to overshoot, and then if you are not on the perfect line, there's less grip, you lose the car or if you're a little bit too keen, a little bit too quick on the way in, you tend to lose the rear quite aggressively, and then you have to catch the car in order not to spin. But staying on the track then is quite difficult. I think there are a couple of corners like that on the track. Obviously I think for all of us it was quite a surprise yesterday to start on this track, and it was very, very slippery. It was like driving on ice–and I think the first run would have been quicker on Intermediate tires, so obviously the asphalt was pretty fresh for all of us. It took a while to come in but I think you see the lap times now just getting quicker and quicker, so the circuit is ramping-up massively.

You lost that 55 minutes yesterday, has that affected more your race preparations than your qualifying preparations?

SV: No, not really, because we were still able to get a decent run on lower fuel and one on high fueling yesterday afternoon. The boys did a good job to get the car ready in time, just to have enough for two runs, as I said, a short run and a long run, so that was very important, otherwise you are a little bit…not in the dark because Mark had a solid P2, free practice two, but obviously you don't, you can't tick all the boxes you would like for Sunday. But that wasn't the case: if anything I think we missed a little bit out on the short runs where we would have loved to try a couple of things in order to make the car go quicker in qualifying–but I think we can say we were quite competitive and very happy with the result today.

Lewis, tell us about the lap, because it was so close, it was getting very close to Sebastian's.

LH: It was. I was very, very happy with my lap. I saw in Q2 that they were obviously massively quick, I think it was a second or something like that, nine-tenths. I didn't know where I was going to find that, so I thought that the Red Bulls would be in the lead–but I just went into Q3 and pushed as hard as I could, went in really hard and just gave absolutely everything. I seemed to find a little bit more time at the last sector, on the actual lap that I did, it was two laps consecutive. Surprisingly, the second lap was even quicker, even though I'd already just done a fast lap. And on that lap, just I think way on the limit everywhere. A couple of oversteer moments; I think I lost about a tenth at the last corner. The thing is I gained it on the way in and lost it on the exit. That's how racing is–but still really happy to be where…

What about the race tomorrow? You were very competitive obviously in qualifying but what about in the race itself?

LH: That side I don't really know. We did a couple of laps on the longer run. Looking after tires is going to be quite difficult tomorrow. Obviously it's quite a demanding circuit for tires with the overheating of the surface of the tires so I don't know. I hope I can get away well. I hope…going to ask Charlie to clean that side of the grid so the people on that side get an equal start and hope that I can fight Sebastian down to Turn One. After that it's a difficult circuit to follow, I think, because it's so fast. Position will be everything.

Mark, obviously, as you say, your thoughts are on Red Bull Racing's Constructors' Championship but would you be happy with third?

MW: In the race tomorrow? No. I think we for sure want to move forward. You never know how tomorrow will unfold. Clearly we've put ourselves in a good position to capitalize on a very, strong clean grand prix from myself. If there's any issues in front at any stage, you're there to grab that. I had a pretty good feeling with the car on the long run on Friday actually, so that's good for us. We'll just have a good sleep tonight and have our head down for tomorrow.

And is the strategy, the tire strategy fairly straightforward?

MW: Reasonably, yes, I would say. But there's a few things that we need to understand during the race tomorrow to see if it is as straightforward as we think.